Art & Architecture

This station is built according to a symmetrical, modernist plan, whose forms and decor are sober to the point of being dull. The trainroom consists of a rectangular cut-and-cover volume about a third of the station’s total length, with mined sections projecting from either end.

The cut-and-cover volume contains the ticket hall mezzanine; each platform is connected to it by two staircases. Each pair of staircases is arranged symmetrically, emphasizing the staircases’ monolithic triangular feet, one of the few really striking architectural gestures in the station.

The fare-paid zone of the ticket hall ends in a parapet overlooking the platforms. The spandrel wall it faces, and its counterpart at the other end of the cut-and-cover volume, are decorated with triangular shapes resembling structural framing. The volume over the platforms is also punctuated by the looming presence of air vents above the Honoré-Beaugrand platform.

Virtually all the decor is in sombre, neutral materials. The walls are ridged concrete, with dado panels of dark grey rough granite marked with vertical striations, and placed at uneven depths; smooth panels are used instead in parts of the accesses and in the headhouses. The long and somewhat shallow benches on the platforms and in the headhouses are also in the same granite. The floors are done in grey-brown granite. The balustrades of the stairs and parapets are in glass with stainless steel trim. On the mezzanine, the walls of the concession and employee areas in the mezzanine are in polished stainless steel.

The rectangular ticket hall mezzanine leads symmetrically to walkways heading northward and southward from its western end to reach the headhouses. On the ceiling, the light fixtures, which unusually pass through holes in the concrete roof beams, fan out to subtly point the way.

The station’s two identical square headhouses, are located diagonally across an intersection from one another. The concrete buildings are illuminated by windows along nearly their entire perimeter. The interiors are lined with the same dark grey granite used elsewhere in the station, with benches along some of the walls. The overhanging roofs, characteristic of the stations of this era, feature square coffers set at a 45-degree angle to form diamonds. Around the headhouses, the planters and even the joints in the concrete pavement repeat the size and shape of the roof coffers, a subtle and interesting harmony.

The station’s sole touch of colour is provided by the two abstract murals on either side of the mezzanine, in the tunnels leading to the entrances. The one to the south is predominantly yellow-orange, and the one to the north predominantly blue-green. The pieces are designed so they can be removed and shuffled around; originally, this was to be done three times a year,¹ but this has apparently not happened for many years.² The murals, in fired enamel on steel, are signed Jean Cartier.

This station’s conservative design is by some distance the least interesting of the eastern extension of the green line.